IONOSPHERIC TOMOGRAPHY USING FARADAY ROTATION OF AUTOMATIC DEPENDENT SURVEILLANCE BROADCAST (UHF) SIGNALS

Abstract

The proposed launch of a CubeSat carrying the first space-borne ADS-B receiver by RMCC will create a unique opportunity to study the modification of radio waves following propagation through the ionosphere as the signals propagate from the transmitting aircraft to the passive satellite receiver(s). Experimental work is described which successfully demonstrated that ADS-B data can be used to reconstruct two dimensional electron density maps of the ionosphere using techniques from computerized tomography. Ray-tracing techniques are used to determine the characteristics of individual waves, including the wave path and the state of polarization at the satellite receiver. The modelled Faraday rotation is determined and converted to TEC along the ray-paths. The resulting TEC is used as input for CIT using ART. This study concentrated on meso-scale structures 100–1000 km in horizontal extent. The primary scientific interest of this thesis was to show the feasibility of a new method to image the ionosphere and obtain a better understanding of magneto-ionic wave propagation.